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Four Month Update

We’re still here. We’re still waiting. So things are pretty much the same as last month. We’re doing all those things that expectant parents do, right now we’re prepping the house. The basement is the current project, and we are going through and reorganizing, filtering, and purging. It’s amazing how much stuff you can accumulate. It’s not just the mementos from the past, but the empty boxes. You know, you bought something (in our case, a TV), and the box has the Styrofoam that will make moving it much easier in the future, so you save it. Then you have others. You then realize that you’re saving more air and foam than heirlooms and childhood projects, like my awesome pinewood derby car above. Oh well. It’s not like we’ll have to start storing a bunch of toys soon….

The adoption front is not very active right now. Technically, there is not much to do before birth now. There is one big thing we are doing now though. Building a relationship.

When you started to date your significant other, there came a point when part of the deal of dating/marrying them is that their family came as a package deal. You unwrap that package hoping that it isn’t too crazy, too stressful, etc. My family package came with a father in-law who introduced me to The Godfather, a mother in-law who gets the neatest gifts, and a brother in-law who loves baseball. That package also came with a Yankee fan (gag) and a hous e that always seemed to be watching the Weather Channel. I’m lucky. The price of staying with Steph comes with this package that isn’t bad at all.

With open adoption, you get the package first and are asked to accept the cost of the package before even meeting the reason you’re doing it. Right now, we are opening that package slowly, and trying to understand it. Each family does things differently than others. Steph’s family opens gifts on Christmas Eve, my family opens on Christmas Day. In our adoption class, one couple opened up their birthparent package to find a mother on drugs and an abusive father. Others found healthy, lifelong relationships for them and their child. Only time will tell.